Dorsalspines
(total): 0;
Analspines: 0. One barbel on chin, one on tip of snout, and one at each of the anterior nostril. First dorsal fin ray very elongate, followed by a row of small, fleshy filaments. Color varies from dusky to pale.

Northwest Atlantic: northern Gulf of Mexico to Newfoundland, western Greenland. Northeast Atlantic: coasts of Europe and the British Isles from the Barents Sea to the northern Bay of Biscay. One locality at Cape Blanc, Mauritania. Reported from Estonia (Ref. 33247). Caught very rarely in the Far East (Ref. 94563).

Biology
Glossary
(e.g. epibenthic)

Sedentary bottom dwellers on muddy sand between patches of hard substrate, or on the soft, smooth ground of deep sinks on the continental slopes of both sides of the North Atlantic. Feed on flatfishes, amphipods, decapods, copepods, mysids, shrimps, isopods and other small crustaceans. Spawn in the Baltic Sea (Ref. 35388). Mixed with soups and other products hot-smoked (Ref. 1371).